


My Brother's Keeper

by MagicEye



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Brief mention of Malfurion/Ysera, Cuckolding, F/M, Implied mutual cheating but like it's fine, Infidelity, Kissing, Marriage, Oneshot, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Resolved Sexual Tension, Reunion, Sexual Content, Short, World of Warcraft: Legion, childhood friends to enemies to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:22:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29895561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicEye/pseuds/MagicEye
Summary: After thousands of years of marriage, one can grow weary of a lover, no matter how dear he may be.And really, are Illidan’s horns and hooves so different from Malfurion’s antlers and claws?
Relationships: Illidan Stormrage/Tyrande Whisperwind
Kudos: 8





	My Brother's Keeper

**Author's Note:**

> I've always loved this pairing but never written it... and I still don't feel like I've done it justice with this fic, so further experimentation might be necessary! anyways, the night elf characters in WoW are just so good, and i especially love the potential for playing with the relationship dynamics between these three. in the game I think Tyrande says something like, “i couldn’t bring myself to speak to him” regarding Illidan during Legion, but we’ll forget about that for this fic because it's a bit paper-thin anyways. also, despite my love for the warcraft universe, my knowledge of the timeline and smaller lore details is shaky at best, so apologies if there are any glaring inaccuracies here :)

When he returns, Tyrande isn’t sure how to feel.

At first, she’s in disbelief— that wild Stormrage, who she’d reviled and mourned in equal parts, had been brought back to life? It seemed utterly unreal.

But when she finally catches sight of him during a reconnaissance mission to the Broken Shore, it’s suddenly all too real. He’s a ways away, skulking along a cliffside, and it’s as if he he had never left them at all. His curled horns are glinting in what passes for sunlight on the demon-infested Shore and he’s bearing that same damned look of determination he always has. Something about the set of his jaw, that pride he’s always carried, is so familiar to her that she feels at once young again and very, very old. 

Despite all of Tyrande's swirling, conflicting emotion, one thing is for certain: he’s caught sight of her too. 

She sees the moment when it happens. His face is turned away, studying something unseen on the horizon, when he turns to pace back— and spots her. Illidan stops entirely, wings going lax and sagging nearly to the ground. His clawed hands fist at his side, then go limp. His ears, ever the tell, droop almost low enough to brush his shoulders. He seems to be melting just at the sight of her.

For all his bluster and power, Illidan Stormrage has always been completely and utterly helpless to hide his emotions. 

And Tyrande, for all her years, is still only mortal, with all the flaws that come with. So she decides to do the only thing a curious woman in an ages-long marriage would do when confronted with one who's always looked upon her with such awe: proposition him.

\----

Illidan Stormrage disappears frequently from the ranks on the Broken Shore, usually to ponder his own history, craft battle plans, or just delight in hunting demons on his own. His current disappearance involves a different kind of hunt, but luckily no one dares to question him when he slips away to one of the ruins on the fringe of their encampment. He pretends not to notice the insinuating look Khadgar shoots after him.

Tyrande joins him soon after, her jewelry clinking softly and glinting in the dim light. 

For a long moment, they just stand there, reveling in the strangeness of the situation. His face, combined with the less-familiar horns, hooves, and rune-patterned skin, make him so much like the Illidan of her childhood and yet so completely different. He’s still wearing the same tattered clothing he’d borne during his defeat on the Black Temple all those years ago. Tyrande supposes that with the onslaught of the Burning Legion, there are more pressing matters on the man’s mind than a change of wardrobe. 

Where she'd initially felt revulsion at his new form and what it represented, she now finds a certain appeal in its distinct silhouette. Perhaps it's the nostalgia talking.

But she's here for a reason, so she draws in a long breath and breaks the silence.

"Illidan Stormrage," she says simply. "You've returned." Tyrande tries to make her voice curt, but he's towering over her. Some small part of her finds him intimidating despite what she plans to do with him.

True to his character, he ignores her greeting in favor of addressing business. Absolutely no tact. Perhaps some things never change, she thinks with a measure of amusement. 

"What would you ask of me, Tyrande? You know I will oblige you." He's talking to her so gently that it's hard to believe this is the same man whose brash actions nearly doomed their people.

Tyrande sighs. "I know you will." She can't afford to be nervous, not now. "As you know, your brother is my beloved. He cares for me, and I for him, in turn." She fidgets with an earring, picking and choosing her next words carefully. "But one can grow weary of a lover, no matter how dear he may be." 

Illidan visibly freezes, muscles going tense.

"Are you offering," he starts, voice hushed and tremulous with unbridled excitement, "what I think you might be?"

She nearly rolls her eyes at him. In lieu of an answer, she lays a slender hand over the runes on his chest, and Illidan looks for all the world like Elune herself has come down from the heavens to bless him. 

But to him, for all of Elune's glory, she has always paled in comparison to Tyrande Whisperwind.

There was something pensive in the way he took her jaw in his hand then, tilting her head back and slotting their mouths together like he was partaking in something holy. She knows she isn't imagining the tremor in his fingers, and finds it endearing. Illidan Stormrage, The Betrayer, ever-confident and sneering with bravado, quakes at a kiss with his childhood beloved. His bare face feels so very different pressed against hers than Malfurion's bushy beard, and she delights in the newness of the experience. His skin is by no means smooth, pockmarked with scars; but also unnaturally warm. Whether that was the result of the demonic energies he'd absorbed or simply a product of the fierce blush he was currently sporting, she couldn't say.

After the kiss, Illidan does not move slowly. He presses her against a broken slab of stone, then eases her down on top of it. Lifting her is absolutely nothing to him-- as if she weighed no more than a feather. In spite of herself, Tyrande thrills at the thought of that strength.

Where Malfurion touches her with a gentle restraint, Illidan seems to crave her with every bit of the desperation she expected from him. His eyes are burning so brightly behind his blindfold that spots dance in Tyrande’s vision when she glances away. 

His hand is on her thigh, then her stomach, then the soft crook of her inner arm, as if he wants to hold and touch and caress and pinch every single millimeter of her lavender skin at once. He skates his nails over her breast like a man possessed, or a man possessing. Malfurion keeps his claws blunted by use of a sand file, but Illidan’s twisted nails are so sharp that Tyrande thinks for a moment he might pierce her skin in his fervor.

She can hear the scrape of his hooves over the stone floor as he positions himself over her, and she shudders. The sound is so alien to what she's grown accustomed to with her husband, a man who always moves silently as a nightsaber. It feels like a final reminder of what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with. She parts her legs for him and he wastes no time, crowding in to press his body against hers at last.

His growl as he enters her is absolutely bestial. Malfurion makes similar sounds sometimes, on the nights when he seems more beast than man, but there’s a demonic and otherworldly tinge to Illidan’s voice that simply isn’t present in his brother’s. Illidan is larger, too-- something she'd taken notice of even in the low light but not been completely prepared for. 

When he's entirely hilted in her, Illidan makes a soft, pained noise against her skin, and Tyrande thinks it’s the most charming thing that’s ever left his mouth. The self-proclaimed Lord of Outland, reduced to speechless whimpers by her body... by Elune, what has she been doing with Malfurion all these years?

“Tyrande,” Illidan is whispering her name like a prayer as he thrusts unevenly. “Oh, Tyrande. Tyrande.” 

And then, not even five minutes into their tryst, he comes inside her.

She holds his heavy head to her breast as he jolts against her. There’s a look of near-agony on his face, as if the pleasure is too much for even his giant form to contain. Illidan’s wings stiffen, then fan out over their bodies in an obscene arc. She can feel his hot breath coming in puffs against her nipple. Had he the faculties, Tyrande thinks, he would likely have that nipple between his sharp teeth, but he’s completely undone, lost to the actualization of a bygone fantasy.

For all its brevity, it is every bit as satisfying as she'd hoped.  
____

In the coming days, her business at the Broken Shore is concluded, and Tyrande returns home to Darnassus. She's greeted at the door of the temple by her husband, who embraces her as warmly as he always does.

Malfurion's sense of smell is keen as that of the animals whose forms he takes, and he buries his face into her neck and inhales, taking comfort in her scent. This time, however, he stills upon detecting something startling-- something that's unfamiliar and yet all too familiar entirely. He pulls back, brow furrowed, and she watches a series of emotions flit across his grizzled features: confusion, understanding, and then a look of reserved acceptance.

After all, there are times when Malfurion emerges from the Dream with his beard tousled and his back aching. Once, he'd awoken with an angry red claw mark running down his back. She'd regarded it with a cocked head and a lifted brow when she caught sight of it, but had said nothing. Tyrande always wonders if she's imagining the draconic essence that still seems to cling to him during those times.

And what Malfurion doesn’t know— or maybe doesn’t know— can’t hurt him. As they lie down in the bed they've shared for over ten thousand years, she almost thinks she spies a glimmer of amusement in his glowing eye before he closes it, and takes his rest at last.


End file.
